Condo billing software

[KittenKong]

Does anyone who is/was on a condo building committee in Thailand have any comments about condo billing software, particularly SoftBizPlus?

What software did/does your building use?

Does your software work properly, and did you have any problems with it or with getting people trained to use it properly?

[briley]

We looked at a number of offerings from a number of companies about 3 or 4 years ago.

All failed to do what we wanted.

All offered to 'fix' so they would do what we wanted.

All were incredibly expensive, cost of the basic program, cost of amendments to the program, cost of training.

In the end we wrote our own simple program that does just what our Condo wants.

[KittenKong]

We looked at a number of offerings from a number of companies about 3 or 4 years ago.

All failed to do what we wanted.

All offered to 'fix' so they would do what we wanted.

All were incredibly expensive, cost of the basic program, cost of amendments to the program, cost of training.

In the end we wrote our own simple program that does just what our Condo wants.

Thanks for that.

I agree that the ones I have seen appear to have been written about 30 years ago and rarely updated, and seriously overpriced for what they are. Possibly one problem is that if you want something with Thai menus etc you dont have much choice. But do we really need Thai menus etc these days? I wonder.

As our building already bought SoftBizPlus we are probably stuck with it indefinitely. Writing our own is certainly within my competence (did I hear cries of "work permit"?), even though we need something more complex, but of course we have to think of what might happen x years down the line if the author is no longer around to maintain it.

[cigar7]

We looked at a number of offerings from a number of companies about 3 or 4 years ago.

All failed to do what we wanted.

All offered to 'fix' so they would do what we wanted.

All were incredibly expensive, cost of the basic program, cost of amendments to the program, cost of training.

In the end we wrote our own simple program that does just what our Condo wants.

Thanks for that.

I agree that the ones I have seen appear to have been written about 30 years ago and rarely updated, and seriously overpriced for what they are. Possibly one problem is that if you want something with Thai menus etc you dont have much choice. But do we really need Thai menus etc these days? I wonder.

As our building already bought SoftBizPlus we are probably stuck with it indefinitely. Writing our own is certainly within my competence (did I hear cries of "work permit"?), even though we need something more complex, but of course we have to think of what might happen x years down the line if the author is no longer around to maintain it.

Did you write your own condo program?

[cigar7]

I am one of the directors for a 400+ unit condo in Pattaya. The condo needs a good condo accounting system, operable in both Thai and English languages. I am looking for a software package that will do everything necessary to manage the units including producing balance sheets, income statements, invoices, receipts, accounts payable. Any recommendations?

[KittenKong]

Did you write your own condo program?

We stuck with Softbiz which seems to be the most widely-used in Thailand.

[ballbreaker]

Our condo uses English version of Quickbooks Enterprise. I do not think version is available that allows switching back and forth between English/Thai. Our Thai accounting person has no problem using English version.

It does everything else you mention. It also has something called audit trail that cannot be turned off. It records any entries that are made in Quickbooks which makes it easy to know who has made a mistake and what was changed including time and date.

[cigar7]

I'm look at an online product called Suk Sabai Condo which seems interesting. Any experience with online subscription based systems? It has both Thai and english.

[KittenKong]

I'm look at an online product called Suk Sabai Condo which seems interesting.

"From just 50 Baht per unit/month".

<deleted>?!?!

[stud858]

After being voted on to condo committee here in Pattaya and noticing zero accountability for money in the office, I have developed a condo accounts management software with excel.

It allows for entering of Incomes and expenses.

Also trackable invoices created via mail merge.

Balance sheets automatically made.

Co-owner sheet showing all relevant info including owing money.

Many reports such as daily balance and bank accounts can be obtained using filter options.

Bank accounts are tracked and balanced to receipts.

Thai/English. Easy to use. 

Functions suitable for your needs could be added or changed.

If anyone is interested message me.  I can send you a video clip demo.

 

 

 

 

[KittenKong]

14 minutes ago, stud858 said:

After being voted on to condo committee here in Pattaya and noticing zero accountability for money in the office, I have developed a condo accounts management software with excel.

 

I hope you have made it both idiot-proof and hack-proof. In my experience the two main problems here are that condo management have no comprehension of what accounting is and will steal anything if they possibly can.

[stud858]

Haha. yeah, I know what you mean. I did keep in mind that it needs to be very very very easy to use and mistake proof.

Minimal key entries and selections are required by staff.

Cells are locked, sheets are protected and things are color coded, Drop down menus and auto-fill is used where appropriate. Backup hard copy reports are part of the safety, along with automatic file backups. All that kind of stuff. I put a lot of thought into it.

People are welcome to pirate it.  After I am initially rewarded with a small chocolate bar or equivalent I will pass on the files.

What do other programs usually cost?

 

 

[KittenKong]

20 hours ago, stud858 said:

I put a lot of thought into it.

People are welcome to pirate it.  After I am initially rewarded with a small chocolate bar or equivalent I will pass on the files.

What do other programs usually cost?

 

Some thoughts:

 

1. This may p*ss off the Thai companies that make and sell condo management software. I hope your permits are in order.

 

2. I hope you have included a log of all activities, that cannot be edited or deleted.

 

3. Pricing of local software is very opaque, as is common in Thailand. I was never able to get a straight answer.

[inThailand]

Quick books accounting software is what our accountant all our condo mangement companies have used. Once you have the income and expenses recorded (general ledger), creating invoices, payment receipts and a host of financial reports is relatively easy. Your reinventing the wheel.

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, inThailand said:

Quick books accounting software is what our accountant all our condo mangement companies have used. Once you have the income and expenses recorded (general ledger), creating invoices, payment receipts and a host of financial reports is relatively easy. Your reinventing the wheel.

 

When I looked at that it couldn't really handle condo billing. It's more of an accounting package, which is not at all the same.

[inThailand]

Especially in LOS, good management of expenses and money trumps all, hence the use a professional accounting system, which is what the auditor prefers as well. Management of tasks can be easily handled as the OP confirms with something like MS Excel.

[ballbreaker]

On 7/31/2017 at 9:56 AM, KittenKong said:

 

When I looked at that it couldn't really handle condo billing. It's more of an accounting package, which is not at all the same.

It is an accounting package designed to be used on many types of businesses out of the box so it must be setup for your particular application.  In the case of condo's it takes very little time to configure for all condo needs (billing, bill payments, bank accounts, petty cash, etc).  You have to use Quickbooks to fully appreciate its capabilities and how easy it is to use.

 

Our condo has been using it since 2008.

[KittenKong]

7 hours ago, ballbreaker said:

Our condo has been using it since 2008.

 

I'm guessing that your building is quite small.

 

Could Quickbooks deal effectively with a building with 1000 units, with all the associated monthly billing of utilities that entails? And the yearly issuing of car parking stickers etc.? I dont think so.

[ballbreaker]

9 hours ago, KittenKong said:

 

I'm guessing that your building is quite small.

 

Could Quickbooks deal effectively with a building with 1000 units, with all the associated monthly billing of utilities that entails? And the yearly issuing of car parking stickers etc.? I dont think so.

Any of the desktop versions would have no problem dealing with 1000 condo units and all the necessary accounting requirements.  The practical limit Intuit gives is 14.5k units so it maintains speedy report generation.

 

We currently issue monthly consolidated utility bill that includes electric, water, telephone, cable TV and internet.  Condo maintenance fee is billed twice yearly.  It also handles all vendor bills and payments and of course bank deposits and checks.

 

We don't deal with parking stickers but I can think of one easy way it can be done.

 

KittenKong I sent you a PM.

 

 

 

[inThailand]

In addition, we plug the years budget and produce several monthly reports against it both on cash and accrual basis which meets the Condo Act monthly financial reporting requirements. The name and shame fees outstanding aging report has done wonders to get owners to pay and pay on-time.

[KittenKong]

3 hours ago, ballbreaker said:

Any of the desktop versions would have no problem dealing with 1000 condo units and all the necessary accounting requirements.  The practical limit Intuit gives is 14.5k units so it maintains speedy report generation.

 

We currently issue monthly consolidated utility bill that includes electric, water, telephone, cable TV and internet.  Condo maintenance fee is billed twice yearly.  It also handles all vendor bills and payments and of course bank deposits and checks.

 

We don't deal with parking stickers but I can think of one easy way it can be done.

 

Thanks for that information. I dont see our building changing any time soon but if ever it happens I will certainly bear that in mind.

[lkn]

On 7/30/2017 at 6:13 AM, stud858 said:

[…] I have developed a condo accounts management software with excel.

It allows for entering of Incomes and expenses.

Also trackable invoices created via mail merge.

Balance sheets automatically made […]

Does that mean you have the building staff do all accounting?

 

How do you ensure that there are supporting documents for each entry your staff make? E.g. if they add an expense like “change filter for swimming pool: 2,352 baht”, how do you know it is legit?

 

Can you get an auditor to create a financial report for the AGM based on your custom system?

For my building, we have a freelance accountant that does the bookkeeping, so while she receives a monthly report with many of our numbers that are indisputable (management fee is based on sq.m., water supply cost based on meter readings, employee salary (overtime) based on worksheets, front desk sales + inventory counts, bills paid via automatic debit from bank statement, etc.), she also goes to our building and then gets all physical receipts from expenses related to general building maintenance.

 

She will check them, enter them into her accounting system (she uses Express) and then send me the ledger for approval.

 

When I have approved it, she does the monthly income and expenditure report.

 

[inThailand]

The key to condo mgmt especially in LOS is money mgmt. Quick books or another accounting software is readily available. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.

[stud858]

12 hours ago, lkn said:

Does that mean you have the building staff do all accounting?

 

How do you ensure that there are supporting documents for each entry your staff make? E.g. if they add an expense like “change filter for swimming pool: 2,352 baht”, how do you know it is legit?

 

Can you get an auditor to create a financial report for the AGM based on your custom system?

For my building, we have a freelance accountant that does the bookkeeping, so while she receives a monthly report with many of our numbers that are indisputable (management fee is based on sq.m., water supply cost based on meter readings, employee salary (overtime) based on worksheets, front desk sales + inventory counts, bills paid via automatic debit from bank statement, etc.), she also goes to our building and then gets all physical receipts from expenses related to general building maintenance.

 

She will check them, enter them into her accounting system (she uses Express) and then send me the ledger for approval.

 

When I have approved it, she does the monthly income and expenditure report.

 

Regarding my recommended condo software. The plan is to assign different accounting tasks to different people. Different staff must show hardcopy evidence that they have balanced to one another. Daily Computer reports. Counting of cash and bank book reconciling All finally checked by juristic at end of each day. Too much detail to squeeze in here but basically work done or items purchased can be seen and with paperwork and software recording reports any fudging of figures will soon arise suspicion. Of course if nobody cares to check or worry about fixing accounting errors then that's the fault of coowners. Not the crooked ones or accounting system. 

[stud858]

12 hours ago, inThailand said:

The key to condo mgmt especially in LOS is money mgmt. Quick books or another accounting software is readily available. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Can you recommend one that is dual language? One big advantage of designing my own with excel is the dual language possibilities ~Both on screen operation and printed documents. 

[lkn]

3 hours ago, stud858 said:

[…] Daily Computer reports. Counting of cash and bank book reconciling All finally checked by juristic at end of each day […]

Can you share with us:

 

1. How many rooms?

2. How many employees?

3. Revenue?

 

Just rough figures, asking because I am curious, as it sounds like a big operation you’re running.

 

I’m in a smaller building myself with revenue of only a few million, and a handful of employees. Though despite being a small building, before I took over, it wasn’t possible to “check” our finances, as everything was done on a cash in, cash out basis, expenses were not accrued, personal accounts were not debited when invoices were issued (there were no personal accounts), and basically all documents were only available in physical form, even things like calculating water supply costs for the rooms were done on paper.

 

[inThailand]

4 hours ago, stud858 said:

Can you recommend one that is dual language? One big advantage of designing my own with excel is the dual language possibilities ~Both on screen operation and printed documents. 

Yes we get Thai and English reports.

 

Why are you trying to sell your home grown excel system when international established software already exists?

You need Leo money? 

[stud858]

3 hours ago, inThailand said:

Yes we get Thai and English reports.

 

Why are you trying to sell your home grown excel system when international established software already exists?

You need Leo money? 

Can you please let me know the name of software with dual language?

Not Leo money. Preworkout powder money. Hehe. Not a beer drinker. More an exercise hobbyist.

[stud858]

4 hours ago, lkn said:

Can you share with us:

 

1. How many rooms?

2. How many employees?

3. Revenue?

 

Just rough figures, asking because I am curious, as it sounds like a big operation you’re running.

 

I’m in a smaller building myself with revenue of only a few million, and a handful of employees. Though despite being a small building, before I took over, it wasn’t possible to “check” our finances, as everything was done on a cash in, cash out basis, expenses were not accrued, personal accounts were not debited when invoices were issued (there were no personal accounts), and basically all documents were only available in physical form, even things like calculating water supply costs for the rooms were done on paper.

 

The condo I'm in has 350 rooms with zero accounting. About 7 staff. Our annual fee per room is about 5000 bht a year. 25 year old building. In my case excel is useful as an improvement to having nothing currently. I guess you could say it's run like a mom and pop store. 

 

 

[lkn]

21 hours ago, inThailand said:

Why are you trying to sell your home grown excel system when international established software already exists?

You need Leo money? 

I didn’t get the impression that stud858 is trying to “sell” his system, just offering to share his solution with anyone who might be interested.

 

As for “established software”, I think the tasks of managing a building’s finances boils down to:

 

- Personal accounts: This is standard double-entry bookkeeping with an account per unit.

- Invoicing: For management fee, utilities, etc. and personal accounts gets debited when invoices are issued.

- Payment receipts: For when co-owners pay their receipts, and their account gets credited.

- Utilities: Water/electricity meters needs to be read periodically and owners invoiced/debited accordingly. I put this as separate item because historic readings should be preserved.

- Payroll: Employee salaries depend on overtime/leave.

- Point of sale: Many buildings sell bottled water, cleaning, TM30 registration and similar. All this should of course be recorded.

- Inventory tracking: This could be seen as part of the POS system, although you also need to input restocking information and settle your loss account periodically.
 

In my building, our accounting software only takes care of the first item on my list, the rest we track with custom spreadsheets, and while I do not have experience with software packages that can handle all on my list, I do think the complexity would be too high for our employees, if they had to learn to use such software package.

 

For example with our custom system, payroll can be bridged to a Google Calendar, reading utility meters can be done via a Google Form on a tablet that the employee carries around the building, and best of all, we have 100% control over our data.